Sometimes, dreams do come true.
I once had dinner with Abbas Kiorostami, world reknown Iranian film producer. I sat next to him at a dinner party. Star struck perhaps, but not intimidated in the least.
We spoke, in my less than perfect farsi, about "Where is my friend's house?" and about "The taste of the Sour Cherry". As you can see my blog titles are inspired by his movie titles. I would rather say cinema.
Kiorostami is a maestro. One of the greatest cinematographers of the last thirty years. Film students probably study him. He began the wave of Iranian cinema.
Tonight, I saw his "Copie Conforme" with Juliette Binoche. He had spoken to me about their friendship and his desire to make a film with her when we sat at the dinner party a year ago in Dubai.
Leave it to Kiorostami to produce a theatrical film with two characters. A husband and wife in marital strain. Lengthy dialogue on art. Theory on art. Concepts on art. To keep us entertained beautiful Tuscany in the background. I must admit that had it not been for his signature photography that I would have lost the plot.
For Kiorostami is also a photographer. Till this day, his favorite subject matters are photos taken from a car. Often the windshield is wet with rain and all we can really perceive is a faintly wet street through a windshield. In this film, the reflections of the sunny windshield glowed on the preoccupied faces of the protagonists as they drove. We mainly saw them in their car and only catch glimpses of a few views of the beautiful Tuscan hills, conveying their inner feelings which prevent them from enjoying their beautiful surroundings.
Otherwise he takes photographs of desolate or vaste landscapes. Fields of wheat with a lonely tree. In the film he verbally celebrates the beauty of the cypress trees and refers to them as art. Otherwise his photographs are snowscapes flickered with black rooted trees. My desire is to own such a snowscape in Dubai because the view of it makes the room glacial. He says it in the film: "gardens of leaflessness." Leave it to Kiorostami.
When I was a kid in Lebanon,a man would shout out from under our summer house's window:"Sandouk al Ajayeb,shufu al Gharayeb".That was the call for children to come and watch:The Box of Wonders,come see the magnificent Pictures".We would sit on a little wooden stool,and he would cover our heads with a black curtain.The man will start moving his reel of the Seven Wonders of the World in bright colours.We would remove our heads into the bright sunlight,all dazzled and wonderstruck!
ReplyDeleteEvery afternoon,I await with anxious anticipation for the blogger's journey
into her Box of Wonders,taking us into the various reels of art,literature,and juicy stories.